“Padom Padom” Goes Mozart

La Linea (“The Line”) is an Italian animated series created by the Italian cartoonist Osvaldo Cavandoli. The series consists of 90 episodes which are about 2–3 minutes long each and were originally broadcast in the Italian channel RAI between 1972 – 1991. Over the years the series aired in more than 40 countries around the world. Due to its short duration (usually 2 minutes 30 seconds), it has often been used in many networks as an interstitial program.

Even though the episodes are numbered up to 225, there are, in fact, only 90 La Linea episodes. The Lagostina series had eight (5 min) episodes, the 100 series had 56 (101-156), and the 200 series had 26 (200-225).

The cartoon features a man (known as “Mr. Linea”) drawn as a single outline around his silhouette, walking on an infinite line of which he is a part. The character encounters obstacles and often turns to the cartoonist to draw him a solution, with various degrees of success. One recurring obstacle was an abrupt end of line. The character would often almost fall off the edge into oblivion and get angry with the cartoonist and complain about it. He was voiced by Carlo Bonomi in a mock version of Milanese that resembled gibberish as much as possible, giving the cartoon the possibility to be easily exported without dubbing. The tune played in the background of the series was created by Franco Godi but in this episode we hear Mr. Linea perform Mozart’s Sonata K 545 in C major.

Mozart – Sonata K 545 in C: